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February 2012
TheSouthern Cross
Part of your Catholic family since 1867
www.thesoutherncross.org.au
Digital version online at www.thesoutherncross.org.au
OPEN DAY OLSH
1 - 3pm Sunday 4 March 2012
OUR LADY OF THE SACRED HEART COLLEGE
496 Regency Rd, Enfield SA Phone 8269 8800 www.olsh.sa.edu.au
Connect to learn, learn to connect
An offer made several months ago to
provide Catholic education to more than a
dozen teenage refugees who are receiving
no formal schooling while detained in Port
Augusta has yet to be taken up by the
Federal Government.
The secondary school-age minors have
not been permitted to attend school,"
says Port Pirie Bishop Greg O'Kelly SJ in
an Australia Day statement issued by the
Catholic Bishops Commission for Justice,
Ecology and Development.
"In Port Augusta we have 30 young
people, nearly all minors and some
in primary school, who have been
in detention now for 12 months, at
Christmas Island and there."
"They are taught English for one hour
a day (at the Port Augusta residential
immigration facility). Apart from that one
hour a day there is only an occasional
activity to occupy them," he says.
"Imagine how harmful the tedium is to
growing young spirits."
Bishop O'Kelly first raised concerns
as early as September last year with
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen over
the youths' minimal education inside
the Port Augusta residential immigration
facility and offered to school them at
Caritas College.
"Even though the minors are Catholic,
they are not permitted to attend the
nearby Catholic school," he says.
Caritas College principal Sister Catherine
Mead rsj said the secondary school-aged
asylum seekers from the immigration
facility were "more than welcome" and
the school had done "all it could" to have
them at the college.
"Caritas College offered to have the young
people attend classes and the school
community would have been enriched
by the process of these young people in
our community," Sr Catherine told The
Southern Cross.
An Immigration Department spokesman
said the facility's primary school-aged
children were schooled off-site at the Port
Augusta public primary school while the
secondary school-aged youth were given
"an appropriate level of education" from
the State Government's Department of
Education and Children's Services at the
facility.
He said the department had not
considered Bishop O'Kelly's offer as "the
Catholic Church had not provided an
indication of the cost".
Continued on page 3.
Detainee schooling row
ALL SMILES: The first day of the 2012 school year couldn't come quick enough for young Zac Cappello who started at St Thomas School, Goodwood, on January 30.
Aida Pedisic has to wait until third term to join him but was eager to keep him company on his big day. Full story in the BACK TO SCHOOL feature on pages 17 to 21.
Photo: Nat Rogers
Ready
to
roll
By Rebecca DiGirolamo